


Glory Stories

by Medeafic



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: Anonymous Sex, Biphobia, Bisexuality, Dirty Talk, Drunkenness, Glory Hole, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Phone Sex, biphobic thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-10
Updated: 2014-02-10
Packaged: 2018-01-11 22:01:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1178446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medeafic/pseuds/Medeafic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris has developed an obsession with glory holes. Zach is sure he's just confused.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Glory Stories

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Janice_Lester](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Janice_Lester/gifts).
  * Translation into 中文 available: [Glory Stories （by Medeafic）](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1450996) by [Xianyun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xianyun/pseuds/Xianyun)
  * Translation into 中文 available: [寻欢记(Glory Stories)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1515620) by [SilentBridge](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentBridge/pseuds/SilentBridge)



> This fic contains: glory holes; anonymous sex; dirty talk; phone sex; characters have sexual contact while inebriated; mentions of Zach/past and fantasy OMCs, Chris/past OFC and Chris/fantasy OMCs; Pinto-trope heavy; biphobia and biphobic thoughts; licking a hot stripe. And a Zach who’s maybe a bit toppy. 
> 
> A/N: This is a story about telling stories, for one of the best storytellers I know: [Janice_Lester](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Janice_Lester). I promised her a fic many, many moons ago - and here, finally, it is. <3
> 
> Many thanks to Brilliant Beta Emmessann.

   
“It’s something you’re born with.”  
   
“Bullshit.”  
   
“You can’t  _seriously_  be trying to tell me it’s nurture, not nature?” Zach asks, and swerves to avoid something suspicious-looking on the sidewalk.  Their very early morning jog, which they’ve taken up semi-regularly since Zach moved back to LA for shooting, has been slower than usual today.  They’re busy arguing.  
   
Chris takes a long swig from his water bottle. In glances, Zach watches the movement of his throat as he swallows.  Chris breaks from his drink to pant, “All I’m saying is, there’s a reason they run classes for it.”   
   
Their argument about stories has swung from novels to Broadway to movies.  Chris insists that storytelling might be an art, but with practice and dedication anyone can do it.  
   
Zach disagrees.  
   
They run another quarter block before Zach puffs, “But if it can be taught, why are there so many shitty books and movies out there?”  
   
“I didn’t say you can teach  _genius_ ,” Chris corrects him.  He swipes the back of his hand across his wet upper lip and Zach catches the scent of his sweat.  It’s strangely appealing; smells clean and healthy.  “For example, no matter how much you try, we both know you’ll never match my intellectual prowess.”  Chris remains impassive as long as he can, before he cracks up as he appreciates his own humor.  He trips over his own feet; Zach jogs stoically on. “Anyway.  All I’m saying is, telling stories is part of what makes us human, and there’s a definable way to tell a  _good_  story.  And that can be learned, if you really wanna learn it.”  
   
Zach is getting invested in the argument despite himself.  They started shooting again just ten days ago, and he’s still relishing the competing senses of nostalgia and excitement.  He’d almost forgotten how much he enjoyed jostling for intellectual superiority with Chris.  
   
“How are you defining ‘story’, though?” Zach asks.  “And don’t tell me it’s just semantics.”  
   
“It’s not.  And classically, of course.”  
   
Zach arches an eyebrow.  “Vague,” he says between huffs.  
   
“There are different schools of thought,” Chris agrees.  “But in any true story, something has to change.”  
   
“So your story yesterday about spilling your coffee down your shirt was a work of art?  You lingered over descriptions about how built you are right now—which even you can agree was unnecessary exposition—but apart from that, something changed.  Your shirt.”  Zach is talking so much that he’s not jogging any more, and Chris slows to his pace.  
   
“Something needs to change inside the  _character_.  That wasn’t a story, it was an anecdote.”  
   
“Your touching tale about your mom walking in on you jacking off when you were thirteen?”  
   
“Vignette.”  
   
“And your unexpectedly lyrical account of the first time a girl played with your butthole?”  Chris told him that one last Friday, after the first cast drinks of the new shoot, when they’d stayed later than everyone else.  Zach has to admit,  _that_  tale held his attention. Chris had obligingly lingered over descriptions.  
   
Chris purses his lips as he thinks.  “Poetic epic.  And I hope you caught the symbolism of my asshole being representative of my personality as a whole.”  
   
They both laugh now.  “But they’re all  _types_  of stories,” Zach says.  “Still.”  
   
They’re back in sight of Zach’s place now, the dark sky changing to amethyst as dawn creeps closer.  Just enough time for Zach to shower, shave, and get to set on to be Spocked. Chris’s call time is usually much later, but he says he likes to get to set early. It gives him a chance to settle himself into character, or Kirk-Up as he calls it.  
   
They slow to a walk. Chris says, “I hold by my definition. In any true story, change is vital.  It’s based on the human condition itself.  People don’t stay the same.”  
   
“Except you,” Zach says.  “God forbid Christopher ‘Perfect’ Pine change a thing about himself.”  
   
“Except me.  Brilliant butthole from womb to tomb.”  
   
Zach’s response is drowned out by a yowl.  It’s Harold, who streaked outside when they left earlier, and refused to come back in.  Now he’s halfway up the palm tree in front of Zach’s neighbor’s house, clinging to the trunk with all four limbs wrapped around it.  
   
Zach can’t help but snigger.  Feline indignation bristles from every one of Harold’s hairs.  Chris gives Zach a disapproving look and hastens to detach the cat, hissing as Harold claws him.  
   
“Shit,” Chris declares, holding Harold away with his arms extended.  He has a long scratch down his cheek, and several more on his arms.  “Makeup are gonna be pissed with me today. Again.”  
   
Zach gathers up Harold, who has turned sack-like and droopy.  He feels bad for Harold, and worse for Chris. The scratch is red and angry.  
   
“Not such a butthole after all,” he says, “if you’re so willing to sacrifice your face for a cat.  Come in; I’ll get you some Neosporin.”  
   
   
***  
   
   
“And that’s why I say it can be taught,” Chris finishes.  He’s given a polemic: invoked the oral tradition of the  _Iliad_ , the eighteenth-century rise of the novel, and the so-called Hollywood Formula to prove storytelling is something that can be learned.  It’s certainly kept Zach entertained during the hours in makeup it takes to get his Spock-face on, even though he’s still adamant that some people are just born storytellers.  The FX and makeup artists have finished with him, and Zach is just waiting a few extra minutes to make sure the ears will hold.  Chris has been powdered and styled, his Harold-scratch almost invisible. The makeup artists want to have one last go at it before he’s due on set, but have gone for another coffee run before they try.  
   
Zach studies his  _Star Trek_  script, wondering if this Hollywood Formula Chris seems so sure about applies to their movie too.  He’s struck with a thought.  “But you’re completely skipping over inspiration.  The Muse.  What if, instead of singing about the wrath of Achilles, Homer sang of the wrath of his mom walking in on him during a quick-and-dirty jerk?”  
   
“She wasn’t mad, Zach.  She’s a therapist.  She never gets mad about that kind of thing.  And inspiration can be as simple as a paper cut, or as magical as falling in love.”  
   
He catches Zach’s eye in the mirror.  
   
“Jesus, man,” Chris says.  “Those eyebrows.  That hair.  My commiserations.”  
   
“Oh, fuck you,” Zach says with a yawn.  He drinks the last of his coffee, cold and unpleasant.  
   
Chris asks, "So, how's coming out been treating you?"  He relaxes into his chair, hair ruffled into the same disarray from yesterday's scene.  Zach watches him resist the urge to run his hand through it, fingers tensing in mid-air and clenching into a confused fist instead.  
   
"Fine." It’s the first time Chris has asked him about it, so he adds, "I'm still surprised it was such big news."  
   
"Oh,  _you_."  
   
Zach has missed the way Chris's eyes crease like an accordion when he laughs.  He has a full-facial laugh: uninhibited.  
   
"I would've called you up when it happened," Chris continues.  "But you were busy being a big-shot and I didn't want to bother you.  Only you, Zach.”  
   
“Only me what?”  
   
“Only you could make coming out such a successful career move."  
   
"Was it?  I'm not so sure.  Time will tell."  He goes back to reading his script, knowing Chris won’t find it rude.   
   
Chris is someone with whom Zach never has to make small-talk, which means much more to Zach than he suspects Chris knows.  They argue a lot, but over things that don’t matter, like whether Eugene O’Neill or Tennessee Williams has made a more lasting contribution to American theater (Tennessee  _of course_ , and what was Chris smoking to think anything else?), and whether jello shots should be consumed by anyone over the age of twenty-five (they should not, end of story).  
   
Last film they also talked a lot about themselves, laying out their flaws for the other to appraise and examine, taking advice on personal weaknesses like Zach’s inability to stop correcting others over minor issues, and Chris’s mile-wide insecurity streak.  
   
So it’s no surprise when Chris says, "Can I ask you something?  Something personal?"  
   
"Sure."  
   
"Can you tell me what it’s like at a glory hole?"  
   
Zach stares at him, at the earnest way Chris is chewing on his lip, the curious crease between his eyebrows.  He has an acne breakout on his jaw, faintly visible under the makeup. "I beg your pardon?"  
   
"I think that came out wrong."  
   
"Why, exactly, do you assume I’m so familiar with glory holes?"  
   
"Really wrong.  I wasn’t trying to make a direct connection.  Besides, I didn’t know whether you preferred to suck or  _be_ su—"  
   
"That’s so disrespectful, man.  Damn.”  Zach is half kidding, but half…not.  “You're lucky we're on-camera soon, because otherwise I would punch you, right in the face, hard.  There would be fractures and bleeding.  Stained gauze pads."  
   
"Wow.  That’s graphic.  For the record, I don't think glory holes are a  _bad_  thing.  So, have you been to one?"  
   
"Ooo- _kay_ , we're done here."  Zach swings out of the chair.  
   
"Wait."  Chris grabs at Zach's hand, pulling him back.  "Maybe this  _is_  coming out all wrong, but it's because I don't know how to phrase what I want to ask without sounding like an asshole.  And that's why I thought I'd ask  _you_ , because you're used to me sounding like an asshole.  You know what I’m like."  
   
Yeah, Zach knows what he’s like, but usually when Chris says something like this, he blazes a cocky path through Zach’s outrage and apologizes later by saving him the best pastry from craft service.  He never has that mournful gaze or the faint sheen of perspiration across his forehead.   
   
Zach asks, "What does all this have to do with me?"  
   
"Nothing.  Well.  When you came out, you said you wanted to join the dialogue."  
   
"I can assure you, I did not mean a dialogue on glory holes." He draws on Spock-cadence to push the message home. It’s something he does when he wants to keep his temper.  
   
Chris's face is falling.  "I know.  I didn't mean any disrespect.  I just thought you might’ve been to one."  
   
"Chris."  Zach disengages Chris's fingers from his wrist and backs up another step.  "You have other gay friends.  Other gay friends you don't  _work_ with as well.  Maybe it would be more appropriate to ask them whatever it is you want to ask."  
   
   
***  
   
   
Several days later, when the mood between them is less strained, it occurs to Zach that Chris’s reference to ‘a dialogue’ means Chris must have watched some of those coming-out interviews.  
   
He sidles up to Chris when JJ is busy blocking a scene with stand-ins and says, “It’s like you have no filter, sometimes.”  
   
“I know.  In my defense, I didn’t realize the mere mention of a G-hole was politically incorrect.”  
   
“It’s not.  It was the way you sprang it on me, like of  _course_  I’d done it, you were just salaciously waiting for confirmation.  And for God’s sake, don’t call it a G-hole.”  
   
“Does that make it worse?”  
   
“Yes.  And to answer your other question, also yes.”  
   
“Huh?”  
   
“Yes.  I have.”  He watches as the penny drops, and Captain Kirk’s face morphs into a close rendition of a scandalized dowager.  “But not for a long time.”  
   
“When…” Chris trails off.  “Can I ask—wait, so are we talking about this now?”  
   
“Yes, Christopher.  We are dialoguing.  Out of curiosity, how many of my coming-out interviews did you watch?”  
   
“All of them.  When did you last go?”  
   
“Sounds thorough.  You watched all of them, but you never called me?  A while back.”  
   
“Will you take me to one some time?”  
   
Zach gapes at him for a moment and gives a snicker as the pieces fall into place.  “I don’t know any  _straight_  places like that.  Not my scene.  Sorry.”  
   
Chris forgets, and runs a hand through his exactly-coiffed hair.  “Shit.”  He waves apologetically across set for a hair stylist, and says, “No.  Not the straight ones.  I meant the ones you went to.  The—the gay ones.”  He flushes like a child saying his first dirty word.  
   
The hair stylist reaches them and clucks her tongue at Chris’s careless hands.  Zach is grateful for the interruption, trying to parse Chris’s request in some way— _any_  way—that will make sense.  
   
“Okay, Spock, we’ll have you here—” JJ grabs him by the shoulders and pulls him into position before peering into his face.  “Mr. Spock, emotional containment is good, but you’re more into shell-shocked territory there.  Dial it down, please?”  
   
This scene is with Zoë, but all the while Zach can feel bright blue, inquisitive eyes on him from the dark behind the cameras.  
   
   
***  
   
   
“Are you avoiding me?  Because it feels like you’re avoiding me.”  
   
Zach looks down from his trailer door at Chris’s belligerent expression and bruised cheekbone, an accidental legacy from a scene shot two days ago.  Shooting has finished for the day, and Zach has only just finished gelling his Spock hair into subservience.  
   
“I’m not avoiding you.”  
   
“If you don’t want to take me to a G-hole, you don’t have to.”  
   
“I am perfectly well aware of that.”  
   
“Then why are you acting like such an A-hole?”  Chris’s smirk appears brash and confident, but Zach knows him well enough to also know it’s an act.  
   
Zach takes pity on him.  “Gretchen, stop trying to make ‘G-hole’ happen.  It’s not going to happen.”  Chris snorts, more in relief than genuine humor.  “Get in here.  Sit down and explain to me your sudden fascination with glory holes.”  
   
Chris shoves his hands in his pockets.  “It’s not so sudden, my interest.”  He mounts the steps slowly, flashing a glance at Zach as he passes over the threshold.   
   
The trailer seems much smaller with Chris in it.  “You hot?” Zach asks.  “I feel hot.  I’ll turn down the heating.”  
   
“You think Ben’s trailer is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside?” Chris asks, as Zach fumbles in the fridge for a bottle of water.  Chris sits down on the comfy sofa, leaving Zach the less-comfy, straight-backed chair.  
   
“I’m sensing there’s a joke here I’m not getting.” Zach swallows down half the bottle. It’s so hot in the trailer.  
   
“You know, ’cause of that show he does.  The doctor show.”  
   
“He does the Sherlock show.  Doctor Who is someone else.”  
   
“Seriously?”  Chris looks so horrified that Zach laughs.  “But I’ve been asking him all about it.  And he’s been answering like he knew what I was talking about.  He never corrected me.”  
   
“Oh, God.  Oh,  _Pine_. Ben is Sherlock Holmes.  He must be messing with you.”   
   
“Shit.”  Chris grimaces, and claps a hand over his face.  “I’m so fucking embarrassed.  Quit chortling at me, Zach.  Everyone must think I’m an asshole.  This isn’t good.”  
   
When Zach subsides enough to talk, he says, “But you  _are_  an asshole, Pine.  Accept it.  Embrace it.”  
   
“I don’t want to accept it. I’m trying to change it,” Chris says, and Zach’s giggles dry up.  “I never  _intend_  to be a jerk.  Sometimes it just happens without me realizing.  I’m trying to tone it down; Hollywood makes everyone weird, but I don’t wanna get permanently tagged as an asshole.”  
   
Awkward. Zach twists his empty water bottle around in his hands while he figures out something to say. “Ben shouldn’t have strung you along,” he offers.  “It’s that British sense of humor or something. But you’re fine the way you are—well, apart from the insecurities.  I thought your career success since last shoot might have bolstered you a little more than it apparently has.”  
   
Chris turns away, but keeps talking.  “Like working with Oscar winner Denzel Washington wouldn’t make me feel inadequate? I read a review that said the  _train_  was more convincing than I was. Tom Hardy, Reese Witherspoon—oh no, I  _never_  felt inadequate next to them.”  
   
By the time Chris finishes, he’s just muttering to himself. Zach reaches over to squeeze his shoulder.  “Relax.  You’re back with second-raters like me now.  I bet I’ll make you feel all superior.”  
   
Chris turns back to look at him.  Zach can’t translate his expression, and it passes quickly.  “You produced and starred in  _Margin Call_.  You did  _Angels_  on stage to rave reviews.  You  _came out_ , for Christ’s sake.  You’ll never be second-rate, Zach.  You’re incredible.”  
   
Chris has never said anything like that to him before unless Zach counts the compliments they paid each other in interviews together.  This doesn’t feel the same, and he doesn’t know how to react.  “Thanks,” he says at last.  
   
“You’re welcome.”  
   
No, it’s too much. Zach drops the hand from Chris’s shoulder. “I’m  _welcome_?  What’s going on with you, Pine?  You never cared before about your jerk-ass tendencies.  As I recall, you considered them a basic building block of your personality.  And glory holes?  Do I even want to know?”  
   
“Would you believe I’m trying to become a better person? Change my life story?”  
   
“By going to a  _glory hole_?”  
   
“Okay, then.  A  _different_  person.  A person with more life experience outside my bubble.  A person with more  _sexual_  experience.  And maybe a person you might be less inclined to think of as an asshole.”  
   
If that’s all it’s about, Zach can quit with the teasing, tone down the faux-yet-serious-rivalry they share.  If he  _has_  to.  It still doesn’t explain Chris’s sudden interest in casual gay sex—which, now that Zach thinks about it— “Have you ever had your dick sucked by a guy?”  
   
If Zach didn’t know better, he’d think the way Chris squirms on the sofa, the way he licks his lips and drops his eyes to Zach’s crotch—he’d think it was a come-on.  
   
“Maybe.”  When Zach doesn’t reply, he adds a sulky, “No.”  
   
“And have you ever sucked dick yourself?”  
   
“Just that one time,” Chris says, as though Zach should know exactly what he’s talking about.  
   
Zach, suddenly,  _does_  know exactly what Chris is talking about.  “After the GQ party?”  Chris nods.  “No, Pine.  Oh, no.  No, no, no.  Does  _not_  count.”  
   
   
***  
   
   
After the GQ party is not a time Zach likes to think about, but it plays itself out in his mind like a movie as soon as Chris brings it up.  
   
The party itself was bad enough.  Too long between seeing each other, both of them downing too many drinks, big blue eyes too close to Zach’s face.  Too many celebrities crowded into the Chateau Marmont, swirling around so fast that Zach had to keep his eyes fixed on Chris just to feel anchored.  
   
Chris started telling him a story that Zach misunderstood, and they talked at cross-purposes for a long time before Zach figured out the girl in the story was actually a guy.  It made no more sense really, and Chris slurring the apparent punch line at him repeatedly—“And I said  _How I wonder what you are_!”—didn’t help.  
   
It was too easy to help Chris stumble to his room in the hotel when he asked for some support, far too easy for Zach to pretend he was just being a good friend.  
   
“How much did you drink?” Zach had asked, indulgence tempering his disapproval.  Chris leaned on him heavily, making both of them sway at the door to the suite, while Zach fumbled in Chris’s coat pocket for the key.  
   
“Not so much.  Not so much.”  
   
“Also, who orders a martini and refuses to eat the olive?”  
   
“I was saving it for you.  I’m a gentleman.  The key is in my pants.”  
   
“That’s what she said.”  Zach propped him up against the wall and tried to figure out a way to do this. He got one fingertip into Chris’s pocket, trying to ignore the wet-lipped smile breaking out over Chris’s face.  Another fingertip, and the smile changed to a lascivious grin.  Zach pulled his hand back and said, “You can’t possibly be drunk enough to need help getting your key out of your pants.”  
   
But Chris twisted around to mash his face against the wall, and hiked up his jacket over his stuck-out ass to allow access to his front pockets.  “Try like this.  Easier.”  
   
Later, Zach told himself that had he not had so much to drink himself, he wouldn’t have done it.  He would have said,  _Pine, you’re drunk; quit messing around._   But in that moment, it wasn’t his brain leading his body.  
   
He took a step closer and slid his hands into Chris’s tight pockets. Unsteady, Chris flattened against the wall and Zach moved with him.  His crotch pushed up against Chris’s butt and then Chris—Zach would swear to this in a court of law—Chris pushed back.  
   
They stood frozen, Zach mouth-breathing alcohol fumes into the nape of Chris’s neck.  
   
“What the fuck, Chris,” Zach said, before Chris interrupted, swiveling his forehead against the wall and speaking more into his own shoulder than at Zach.  
   
“Get on with it.”  Chris grabbed Zach’s wrist and shoved it down—and there, finally, Zach’s fingertips touched metal.  He scrabbled for a too-long moment and withdrew with the elusive key. Damn Chateau Marmont anyway for its old-fashioned keys; a keycard wouldn’t require such a deep-pocket thrust. They were definitely the ones at fault. Zach should complain.  
   
Chris twisted back to face him, still leaning against the wall, still grinning.  “You’re handsy.  I like it.”  
   
“You’re drunk.  Come on.”  
   
It took several attempts to get the key in the lock.  Chris leaned in close to him and stared at Zach’s face, at the lock, back at Zach.   
   
“God _damn_  it,” Zach groused, trying again.  
   
Chris put his nose against Zach’s cheek, his breath hot and ginny.  “Classic Freudian moment.  Don’t you think?  Come on, Zach. Come on, baby.  Do it for me.  You can do it, baby.  Get that key lined up and just let it  _slide_  on in.”   
   
“You need to get to bed.  Oh,  _finally_.”  He tried not to give a too-obvious sigh of relief as the lock clicked and the door opened.  “Come on, Boozy.”  He wrapped his arms back around Chris’s waist and hefted him up.  “Walk with me, help me out here.  You’re a dead weight, and I had too much myself.”  
   
“Stay for another drink,” Chris pleaded.  Zach shook his head and kicked the door shut behind them.  “Stay for a drink,  _pleeeease_?”  The bed was only a few feet away, but Chris stumbled at the final step and managed to pull Zach down onto the duvet with him.  “Pretty please with sugar on top?”  
   
“Chris, let go of me.”  Zach chuckled, but things might get awkward soon.  “You’re scrunching my lapels.  Come on, unclench.”  
   
“ _You_  unclench.”  
   
Chris’s fingers were hot and sticky like a toddler’s, and as soon as Zach peeled one hand off, Chris grabbed him with the other again, giggling and crowing.  
   
“Pine—”  
   
“Kiss me.”  
   
Zach’s tongue turned to cotton balls in his mouth, lumpy and dry and useless.  He was nose-to-nose with Chris, on top of him, their legs entwined and—he could feel it—Chris was hard in his pants, rubbing up against Zach with tiny thrusts.  
   
“Kiss me, Zach.  Please?”  
   
Zach only  _meant_  to press a closed-mouth kiss to the corner of Chris’s lips, call his bluff and then scramble off, heave him onto the bed properly and take his stupid shoes off for him.  He’d leave Chris sleeping on his side to avoid vomit-inhalation. In the morning, he would have called Chris and asked how his head felt and casually dropped a few key words to see if Chris took the bait, to see if Chris remembered anything.  
   
That was the plan.  
   
What happened instead was that he sucked at Chris’s tongue in an inelegant and sloppy way, while Chris snaked his arms around Zach.  He wrapped his legs tighter around Zach’s thigh and gave one shameless hump before flipping them both over.  
   
“Fuck, Zach.   _Zach_.”   
   
Zach felt wet kisses down his jaw and a hard nip on his neck that made him buck up at Chris, and Chris moaned so loudly into his clavicle that Zach’s chest reverberated with the noise.  
   
For a drunk, Chris sure could move fast, Zach thought, feeling his shirt yanked out of his pants and halfway up his stomach before he registered what was going on.   
   
“Chris…”  
   
“ _Zach_.”  
   
Again, Zach had a plan.  He would demand in a stentorian tone what Chris thought he was doing, and Chris would be sobered, beg forgiveness—then Zach would move on to seeing him safely to bed and the morning phone call to make fun of him.  
   
And again, the plan fell through.  Lips on his belly and a tug at his belt and the vibration of his zipper opening: that was all it took for Little Zach to stage a coup.  It was happening.  It was definitely happening.  And then Chris stopped.  
   
He said something, low and muffled into Zach’s hipbone so Zach had to strain to hear it.  “What?”  
   
“Can I?”  Chris licked down under the band of his briefs, so low that Zach could feel his hair dragging against the tongue.  
   
 _You’re drunk.  He’s drunk_ , Zach’s brain reminded him, managing to get a message through the really effective communications blockade his dick had set up.   _And most importantly, he’s straight.  Do not do this_.  
   
“Can I, Zach? Please?”  
   
“Oh, God.  Yes.”  
   
The next few minutes were seared into Zach’s mind, no matter how cloudy the rest of the evening seemed at a later date.  He would never forget the greedy way Chris mouthed over his dick, still covered in underwear.  The sly hand between his legs, massaging his balls.  The clumsy way Chris pulled at his underwear to get it down, the initial suck over the head of Zach’s cock.   
   
Chris was eager but inexpert, trying to swallow Zach down to the base immediately, and Zach winced at the amount of teeth involved.  But there was no time for protest; Chris gagged, pulled off, gagged again, and made a dash for the bathroom.  
   
Presently, loud retching noises filled the suite. Zach, staring at the dim ceiling with the start of a pounding headache, his dick damp and limp on his thigh, took stock of his situation.  He re-zipped, re-belted, re-tucked and stood up.  
   
In the bathroom, Chris was head-down in the toilet bowl, groaning.  
   
“Are you okay?” Zach asked, keeping his tone neutral.  “Do you want some water?”  
   
“Sorry,” Chris croaked, before vomiting again.  
   
Zach tried not to breathe in until he stepped outside the door again.  “You don’t have to be sorry,” he said once the storm had passed, raising his voice so Chris could hear him.  Judging by the noises, Chris had now emptied his stomach completely.  “I should never have…I’ll get you some water.”  
   
“No, ’s’okay.”  Zach peeked around the corner.  Shakily, Chris got himself to his feet and flushed the toilet.  He wiped his mouth and rinsed it out under the tap.  “At least I made it to the toilet, right?”  
   
“Right,” Zach replied.  “Okay.  Well, I’ll see you.”  
   
“Wait.”  
   
“What?”  
   
“I really am sorry.  I pushed down too far or something.”  
   
“I’ll call you tomorrow and check on you.”  
   
“Please don’t take this personally.”  
   
“I’ll call you tomorrow, Chris.  Get some sleep.  Don’t choke on your own vomit, okay?”  
   
   
***  
   
   
“That doesn’t count, Pine,” Zach repeats.  “And I thought we agreed never to talk about that— _incident_.”  
   
“ _We_  never agreed to anything.   _You_  just never talked about it.  You called me the next morning and acted like nothing had happened.  In fact, let me take this opportunity to apologize again, and reassure you it had  _nothing_  to do with—”  
   
“Chris,” Zach sighs.  “Why the sudden interest in dick?  Why now?  And why, for God’s sake, why  _me?_   Why am I the one being burdened with this?”  
   
Chris fidgets and resettles on the sofa, hiking an ankle up over the opposite knee.  He drums his fingers on his thigh.  “So here’s the story. I’ve always had fantasies about guys; I just never did anything about it. I figured I was maybe nominally bi, but no big deal. I never thought I’d do it in real life.  But over the last few years, I noticed I’ve been swinging more towards the male of the species. And I thought: why not?  Why shouldn’t I try it, at least once?”  Chris catches sight of Zach’s face and backtracks.  “No, I didn’t mean…I’m making it sound like you were an experiment that GQ night, aren’t I?  I didn’t mean that, I’m sorry.”  
   
“Oh, I think you did.”  Zach leans forward, resting his forearms on his knees, and drops his head down between his shoulders to take a few deep breaths.  Deep, calming breaths.   _You know what he’s like._  
   
When he glances up again, Chris looks stricken, his whole body tense.  “Half the time we talk I seem to be apologizing to you,” he mutters.   
   
“I owe you an apology for that night, too.  You were drunk.  I should never have let it get as far as it did.”  
   
“You were drunk too.”  
   
“Not as much as you.”  
   
“I don’t know how you fucking put up with me.”  
   
“I’m narcissistic, affected, and impatient with anyone I think is stupid.  Yet you put up with me.”  
   
Chris barely smiles.  “That’s only on your bad days.”  
   
“Zoë sent out an email to everyone about how filming was going to be ‘even better then last time!’ and I reply-alled with ‘I think you mean better  _than_.’  You were the only one who emailed back telling me to retract head from ass.  You keep me grounded.  You always have.  If it means being routinely flabbergasted at your tactlessness, I can deal.”  
   
“So will you tell me about the first time you went to a glory hole?”  
   
“There we go: flabbergasted.”  
   
“Please?”  
   
Chris looks like a teenager, confused and eager and bewildered all at the same time.  Like he knows there are secrets to being an adult, and he hasn’t yet found them.  His lips are flushed fuchsia from gnawing on them and his neck is blotchy red. His acne breakout has spread to his chin.  
   
“I’ll tell you, but on one condition.  You have to explain to me this obsession with glory holes.”  Chris hesitates, but nods.  “And not here, not now.  Come over to my place and I’ll tell you about it there.”  
   
Chris slowly stands up, and follows Zach to the door.  A few steps from the trailer, he puts a hand on Zach’s arm.  “Are you doing this just because I bugged you?”  
   
“No.  It’s because I remember how it feels to be confused.”  He pats Chris’s hand and walks on, pulling Chris along with him.  
   
   
***  
   
   
Zach pours himself a glass of red in the kitchen once they get back to his place, because he’s going to need it.  Chris sticks to water.  He’s lost all his nervousness now; brash again and loud-mouthed, mocking Zach about the astronomical number of takes he needed for one small scene today.  
   
“Sit your ass down and be quiet,” Zach says at last.  “Do you want to hear or not?”  
   
“Yes,” Chris says at once, and splays his thighs over one of Zach’s bar stools on the other side of the kitchen counter.  He leans forward on his elbows.   
   
“You first.  We had a deal.”  
   
Chris sits back, not quite so confident anymore.  “Well.  They’re anonymous, right?  You never know who’s in there.”  
   
“Most of the time.”  
   
“So that’s why I’ve been thinking about it.  Because if I went, no one would know who I was, and I could find out what it was like.  Cock, I mean, and whether it’s something I should stick to in fantasy, or…”  
   
Zach takes a big gulp of zinfandel.  “So in this hypothetical, where you go incognito to a men’s bathroom or an adult bookstore, are you intending to give a blow job or to receive?”  
   
“Give, of course.  More blessed, right?”  He’s got his swagger back.  
   
“I see.”  
   
“You look dubious.”  
   
“According to  _my_  notes, the one time you tried it, you yakked up your internal organs.”  
   
“I can see why all the boys like you.  You’re so classy and sophisticated.”  Two spots of red are staining Chris’s cheeks.  
   
“I’m just saying.”  
   
“I was  _drunk_.  It wasn’t about what we were doing.  It’s not like I took one look at your junk and had to puke.”  
   
They’re just going to argue if the conversation continues down this track, so Zach changes topic.  “It was a few months after I moved out here.  I was young and dumb and horny.”  
   
“A  _very_  promising beginning to this story.”  
   
   
***  
   
   
Zach was young and dumb and horny, but most of all he had a taste of freedom.  Los Angeles was far away from home, far away from Mom, far away from every awkward moment he’d had growing up.  
   
He still hadn’t quite grown into his face, like everyone had told him he would.  He was still clumsy sometimes, and insecure about his body, and sex so far had been fascinating but imperfect, occasionally disappointing.  But Pennsylvania gave way to California, and Los Angeles was a shimmering sexual promise, a place where Zach knew, he just  _knew_  he’d find something better.  Something good.  Something to write home about, in a manner of speaking, although he’d die before he ever talked to his Mom about gay sex again.   
   
He crashed with his brother Joe the first month before finding a minimum-wage waiting job and a share-house with two other guys, both actors seeking work, one gay, one allegedly undecided.  Justin, definitely gay, was the one who took Zach to his first adult theatre, tucked into the back of a plasticized sex shop in West Hollywood.  
   
Justin liked to cultivate a worldy-wise persona that—  
   
   
***  
   
   
“What did it look like?”  
   
“What did what look like?”  
   
“The place.  Describe it to me.”  
   
“I  _did_  describe it.”  
   
“Jeez, Zach, you’re the world’s worst storyteller.  I don’t care about Justin.  I appreciate the throwaway detail about your Mom Issues but most of all I just care about the  _sex_.  Think about your audience here, and fast-forward.  Was it dark?”  
   
“Yes.”  
   
“Seedy?”  
   
“Abysmal.  The floor was sticky.”  
   
“What did it smell like?”  
   
“Disinfectant.”  
   
Chris makes a face.  “You’re not selling this to me, man.”  
   
“Good,” Zach says, still stung at the criticism of his narrative skills.  “Because you’d just do something dumb and get thrown out anyway.”  
   
“Christ.  Fine.  Tell me about worldly-wise Justin.”  Chris throws his hands up in defeat and slaps them back on the kitchen counter.  
   
“You’re not making much progress on your de-assholing.”  
   
Chris rearranges his face into a contrite and chastised expression.  “I beg your forgiveness, Zachary.  It’s your story; you tell it how you want.”  
   
Zach scowls.  “Just ask me what you want to know and I’ll tell you.”  
   
“Did you go in a booth alone?”  
   
“Yes.”  
   
“Were you nervous?”  
   
   
***  
   
   
Of course Zach was nervous.  Justin had assured him it would be safe, that they’d go to one of the places where condom use was encouraged.  But looking at that hole in the wall, at the shadows flitting behind it, Zach felt less like he was about to have a sexual awakening and more like the whole endeavor was madness.  Who knew what could be waiting there on the other side?  He might never have been to a place like this before, but Zach had heard stories.  Terrifying stories of mousetraps and crazed knife-wielders and biters, or worse: police raids.  
   
But he was there for reasons, one of which was to stop being so scared of everything.  Another reason—and it seemed like a good one at the time—was that he was tired of jerking off to the thought of old crushes, old familiar fantasies that never grew or changed.  He wanted something new.  
   
He unbuttoned his jeans and pulled them down, boxers with them, and turned to display his dick to the hole.  
   
Maybe he wasn’t doing it right, Zach considered, as the seconds ticked by.  He felt more and more ridiculous.  Maybe he’d been wrong, and there wasn’t anyone on the other side of the wall.  His shirt tails were hanging around his soft cock like curtains, and he swept them out of the way, irritated.  
   
When a finger slid through the hole, hooking over the edge, Zach stumbled back in shock, but caught himself before he fell, hobbled at the ankles by jeans and underwear.  
   
The finger withdrew, and fear faded into disappointment.  Zach shuffled forward and said, “No, sorry, I was just—”  
   
The finger reappeared, sliding a rubber through the hole and holding it against the wall.  
   
Oh.  
   
Zach moved forward to take it, but the finger and condom withdrew as if beckoning him in.  He looked down at the hole rimmed with dirty, frayed duct tape, and wondered exactly how many cocks it had held.  
   
There was an impatient tap on the wall, and Zach made up his mind.  He took up his dick, still embarrassingly soft, and maneuvered it through the hole.  His heart beat faster and faster as he waited, sure, that something bad was going to happen, something painful and bad and irrevocable.   
   
He was so sure of it that he yelped at first contact, the back of a finger trailing under his cock and letting it flop back.  Zach couldn’t be sure, but he thought he heard a chuckle from the other booth.  
   
“First time?”  
   
The voice floated over the partition, and Zach frowned.  He’d assumed no talking was a  _rule_.  Justin had told him no one would know who he was, and he wouldn’t know who anyone else was.  Talking seemed like it should be outlawed.  
   
A caress on his cock again, gentle and tender, and Zach said, “Yeah.”  
   
“I’ll take care of you.”  
   
The voice was rough and low, but for some reason, Zach trusted it.  He trusted the hand, too, insistent on his dick but not rushed, coaxing him into hardness.  He could feel hot, moist air gusting over his flesh, and just when he had completely relaxed into the hand-job, the stranger stopped, held him steady, and rolled on the rubber.  
   
   
***  
   
   
“And then what?” Chris asks, chin in his hands, wide eyes fixed on Zach.  
   
“And then he blew me.  What do you think?”  
   
“Oh, my God, Zach, you’re skipping the best  _part_ ,” Chris says, petulance in the droop of his lower lip.  
   
Zach takes a sip of his wine and does his best imitation of the Cheshire Cat.  
   
“Was it good?  At least tell me that.”  
   
“It was…”  Here, Zach has to make up his mind about something.  Seeing the admiration in Chris’s face is the deciding factor.  “It was phenomenal.  He swallowed me right down and did this thing at the back of his throat, so all his muscles were undulating, and it felt like…”  He casts around for a simile.  “It felt like I was being sucked off by a cloud of friendly jellyfish.”   
   
Jesus.  He cringes.  Maybe Chris is right about his storytelling.  
   
But Chris is enraptured.  “ _Wow_.”  
   
Zach pushes away the guilty feeling.  Maybe it wasn’t  _phenomenal_ , but it wasn’t bad.  It was fine.  Decade-younger Zach had certainly enjoyed it, and that was the main thing back then.  Besides, he’s doing what Chris wanted and thinking of his audience.  His audience definitely appreciates it.  
   
“And then what happened?” Chris demands.  
   
“Then I met up with Justin in the front shop and we went home.”  He skips the part about fucking Justin in the living room when they got home.  Doesn’t seem like the kind of detail Chris would care about.  
   
Chris has a dazed smile, his eyes faraway.  “I wonder what he looked like.  The guy.”  
   
“That’s the point.  It doesn’t matter.  All that mattered was, I was up for it, and he liked the look of my dick.”  He bites back a bitchy comment about the guy not barfing all over the floor of the booth at the sight of it.  Besides, remembering how sticky that floor was, Zach can’t be sure nothing like that had ever happened.  
   
“I like that,” Chris says.  “It’s real equality, isn’t it?  Truly egalitarian.  No way to be influenced by race, color or creed.”  
   
“Pretty sure he could tell I was white, Chris.  And I saw his fingers, too.  Don’t get carried away.”  
   
Chris waves it away, an inconsequential detail.  “Tell me more.  When did you go back?”  
   
Trickier and trickier.  Zach doesn’t like to lie, but Chris is staring at him with awe and, apparently, newfound respect.  “Not for a while.”  
   
“Tell me about it.”  Chris’s tongue appears, slipping out and running around his lips in an unconsciously lewd way that shoots right to Zach’s balls.  
   
“I’ll tell you some other time.  I need to get to bed.  We have an early call.”  
   
Chris snaps back from Fantasy Land, regret in his eyes.  “Oh, yeah.  I forgot.”  
   
Zach is usually a generous host, but he hustles Chris out as fast as he can.  
   
“See you tomorrow,” Chris says, once he’s on the doorstep.  “And you promise to keep telling me sometime?”  
   
“Sometime.”  
   
“Because that was hot.”  
   
“Bye.”  He just about slams the door in Chris’s face.  
   
In the bathroom jacking off, the anonymous mouth of Zach’s fantasy becomes too familiar: soft lipped and pretty, bowed on top like a present wrapped up just for him.  He remembers an encouraging gin-tinged whisper, warm on his jaw,  _Come on, Zach, come on, baby.  Do it for me.  You can do it, baby.  Just let it slide in_.  
   
He shoots in the sink, which is definitely below his usual standards of fastidiousness, but it’s easy enough to clean up.  No, the real problem here is something quite different.  Something Chris-shaped.  Zach swore off fantasizing about co-stars  _years_  ago, or if he does, he keeps it irregular so there’s no danger of any emotional entanglement.   
   
“You might have yourself a problem, there,” the reflection in the bathroom mirror tells him.  
   
   
***  
   
   
Zach manages to successfully wrangle Chris and avoid any follow-up for another week before he’s caught unawares on the phone Saturday night just as he’s settling to sleep.  
   
“Hey,  _t’hy’la_.  Whatcha doing?”  
   
“Attempting to sleep.”  
   
“Sleep?  Or fuck?”  
   
“Sleep.  What do you want?”  
   
“So you don’t have anyone there with you?”  
   
Zach rearranges his pillows and sits back up against the headboard, blinking into the darkness.  He feels warm and cozy, and the sleep Chris has interrupted hasn’t yet turned back into wakefulness.  “No.  My reputation is shot, I guess.”  
   
“Aw, I won’t tell anyone that Zachary Quinto sleeps alone occasionally.”  Chris sounds pleased about something, although Zach can’t put his finger on it.  “So this would be a prime opportunity to tell me more about your G-hole adventures, amirite?”  
   
“You are not right.”  Before Chris can complain, Zach decides it’s time to ’fess up.  “Besides, I only went one time.  Turns out risky anonymous sex is not for me.  I like to cuddle after I come.”  
   
“Bullshit.”  
   
“I assure you, I am a consummate snuggler.”  
   
“Bullshit you only went once.  You said you went again.”  
   
“I lied.  You seemed into it, so I figured—”  
   
“You’d string me along?”   
   
Zach can’t make out Chris’s tone.  “I figured I’d be kind to you.  You seemed so desperate to think of me as a harlot.  Besides, I was crafting a story, not  _lying_.”  
   
There’s a pause, and then Chris says, “So cuddling, huh?”  
   
Zach has no idea what he means, but he can hear faint alarm bells sounding  _somewhere_.  “Having come clean, I will return to my slumber.  Night, Pine.”  
   
“Wait.”  
   
“What?”  
   
“Tell me a story anyway.”  
   
“Tell you a story?”  
   
“Sure.  Bedtime story.  I went out with this girl for a while, nice girl, very   kinky—”  
   
“Hey, why don’t you tell me yet another story I don’t want to hear about your sexual exploits?  Oh, wait, you are.”  
   
“—and she used to ask me to read  _The Velveteen Rabbit_ to her every night before she went to sleep.  She also liked to wear pigtails and call me Daddy, which messed with my head too much.  I had to break up with her.  But the reading thing, it was cool, and whenever I feel down I end up wishing someone would give  _me_  a bedtime story.  Send me off to sleep with happy thoughts.”  
   
Zach is rolling his eyes and on the verge of a snappy shut-down when he thinks about what Chris is telling him.  He wants a story because he’s feeling down?  That doesn’t seem like the Chris he knows.  Chris occasionally gets in a funk, but his irrepressible, natural joy in life always lifts him.  
   
“You’re not feeling so great?”  
   
“Nothing that can’t be cured by a story from you, Zach.”  Now he’s listening for it, Zach can hear it—the hint of melancholy in Chris’s tone.  
   
So Zach doesn’t point out that last time Chris berated his oratorical style, and decides that if a story is all Chris wants, it’s not going to kill him to chat for a while.  “Hang on,” he says, and punches his pillows into plumpness before resettling with a contented sigh.  “What kind of story?”  
   
Chris gives a long  _hmmm_. “Tell me a story about a guy who goes to a glory hole for the second time.”  
   
“You—you want me to tell you a  _dirty_  story?”  
   
“Of course.  Or wait, maybe he’s a regular.  Yeah.  He’s a regular, and there’s one guy in particular he keeps going back for.  Some nights he finds him and others he doesn’t—but this is one of the nights he does.”  
   
“Would  _you_  like to tell the story?” Zach asks politely.  “You seem to have a clear idea of where you want it to go.”  
   
“This is just a prompt, man.”  
   
“Uh huh.  Okay.  Well, let’s see…”  Zach would like to pretend he’s not invested, that he’s only humoring Chris, but he can’t help feeling some sense of challenge. “So your guy, we’ll call him, uh, Dan.  Dan is making his way down the line of booths to find the one—”  
   
“No, no.  Pretend the guy is you, call him Zach.  It’s sexier that way.”  
   
Zach feels noble when he manages not to suggest, once more, that Chris tell the damn story himself.  “Alright, jeez.  But I’m not doing first person, that would be too weird.  So  _Zach_ is making his way down the line of booths—”  
   
“Are you sure present tense is right for this?”  
   
“ _Pine_.”  
   
“Just a suggestion!”  
   
   
***  
   
   
Zach made his way down the line of booths to the one he usually had luck with.  He had no firm idea if the guy would be there that night—usually Thursdays were a safe bet, but last week he never showed, and Zach had to settle for someone else with half the skills and what felt like double the teeth.  He toyed with the idea of leaving without relief tonight if the guy wasn’t there, but he’d purposely gone three days without jacking off, just to make it better.  If the guy wasn’t there, Zach would settle.  
   
The end booth was taken: a good sign.  It was where the guy usually situated himself.  Zach slipped into the booth next door and unzipped, played with himself a little to get in the mood, squeezing and rubbing the head of his cock until he was thick in his own hand.  This in itself was almost as hot as being sucked—the idea that the guy was watching through the hole, maybe feeling himself up at the same time.  
   
A finger appeared.  It was definitely the guy.  Zach would have recognized that nibbled fingernail anywhere, the tip of the finger curved in a delicate arc instead of the brutish, blunted fingers Zach sometimes saw.  Not that he minded those.  Strong and callused palms had their own charms.  But this guy,  _his_  guy, as Zach was coming to think of him, had softer skin, more precision in his hand jobs, and God, what a mouth on him.   
   
Zach moved forward to take up the familiar position, nose inches away from graffiti that was indecipherable after so many sweaty brows had rubbed into it.  He tried to stay a little distance from the wall, except for where he was forced to present his cock because he could never know exactly what had been touching that wall previously—  
   
   
***  
   
   
“But he always ended up plastered right against the thin partition separating him from his guy and he never cared about how gross it was.  Because this Zach was  _definitely_  not a germaphobe.”  
   
Zach rolls his eyes.  “Fine.  This Zach was a filthy pig who delighted in bacteria.”  
   
Chris’s chuckle of thanks sounds extra-low and sexy, and Zach listens to him breathing for a moment.  
   
“I mean, he can be all OCD if you  _want_ —” Chris offers.  
   
“It’s not that.”  
   
“Then what?”  
   
“Christopher, are you touching yourself?”  
   
“No!  That would be wrong.  Non-consensual experimentation.”  Chris sounds sincere, not a hint of sarcasm.  
   
“You harass me into spinning you a filthy tale, but jerking to it is beyond the pale?”  
   
“Yes,” Chris replies placidly.  “I mean, I was planning to after, but it didn’t seem appropriate right now.”  Zach hears what sounds like a swallow.  “I hope that’s okay.  Am I being a dick again?”  
   
“No.”   _Oh, don’t say it.  Don’t say it._   “But if you want to whack off now, you can.  Since I’m being forced to entertain you, I wouldn’t mind something in return.”  He keeps his voice light, but Zach can feel himself starting to blush.  He runs a light hand over his semi, wondering if Chris will back off, end the call.  
   
“You want to listen to me spanking it?”  
   
“I’m not exactly opposed to hearing a hot guy get his rocks off.  But only if you don’t mind.”  
   
There’s a rustling on the other end of the phone and when Chris speaks again, he’s definitely breathing harder.  “You think I’m hot?”  
   
It’s not like Chris doesn’t know Zach appreciates his form; he’s admired it openly over the years.  It’s his insecurity that makes him ask, Zach figures.  “Yeah, you’re hot.  Are you doing it?”  
   
“Yeah.”  
   
Zach sags a little into the bed, picturing Chris with his cock in hand, squeezing at it, teasing himself, maybe playing with his balls a little.  
   
“Zach?”  
   
“Uh?”  
   
“The story?”  
   
“Oh.  Right.”  
   
   
***  
   
   
Zach fed his cock through the hole.  The guy was on him at once, licking at the head and snaking his tongue into Zach’s slit.  A hand followed, propping him up to the optimal angle, and Zach felt wet, suctioning heat close down his shaft, almost all the way down until the guy was stopped by the partition.  
   
Zach heard him whimper, as though pleading for more, and thrust through the hole as far as he could, deeper into the willing mouth.  It whined around his dick in thanks, and withdrew to suckle at Zach’s cockhead, a trail of spit dripping through the hole and soaking his balls.   
   
   
***  
   
   
“Zach?” Chris pants, and Zach breaks off, wondering if Chris is close.  
   
“Yeah?”  
   
“What’s he look like, the guy?”  
   
“I can’t see him,” Zach points out reasonably.  
   
“No, but in your mind, how do you picture him?”  
   
Zach wonders for a second when Story Zach and Real Zach became conflated, but he’s willing to go along with it.  Chris is so into this. “Tall.  But not taller than me.  Great arms, you know?  I like a firm bicep.”  
   
“Yeah?”  
   
“Sure.  And—and messy hair, because he’s been in there for a while, sucking dick, waiting for me to show up.”  
   
Chris groans, and asks, “What color hair?”  
   
“Uh. Brown. Maybe—maybe some blond highlights.”  
   
Chris can barely catch his breath now, and Zach’s cock is throbbing desperately against his belly.  “Zach, I’m—you’re—sure you still want me to—”  
   
“Yeah.  I’m sure.”  Maybe this will turn out to be not a great idea, but right now Zach can’t see any downside.  Or doesn’t want to.  Chris is grunting and gasping unevenly, right in his ear, and Zach can’t help it, he puts his hand over his own cock and pushes down, just a tiny bit of friction to ease the buzzing under his skin, all over his body.   
   
Chris chokes out, “Eyes.”  
   
“What?”  
   
“What color eyes?”  
   
“Light.”  
   
“Gray?  Green?”  
   
No.  Zach knows exactly what color eyes this guy has.  “Blue,” he says, the rough timbre of his voice surprising him.  It surprises him more that this one word is what pushes Chris over the edge,  _ah ah ahhhhing_  right into the phone with what must be a wide-open mouth.  
   
Fuck.   _Fuck_.  Zach tries to shake it off, the lust fogging up the windows of his brain.  Any second now, he’s sure, Chris is going to feel weird about this.  It’s time to focus on damage control.  He can worry about his dick later.  
   
But Chris doesn’t seem to feel weird.  He’s come-happy and tired and affectionate, but he’s not weirded out.  “God, Zach.  You’re so good at that.  You ever think about doing a dirty audio version of the Star Trek novel?  I’d buy it.”  
   
Zach scoffs, but can’t help some internal preening.  
   
“That was hot,” Chris says.  
   
“Glad you enjoyed.”  
   
“You wanna…?”   
   
It takes Zach a moment to figure out what Chris is asking.  He considers it, strokes his hard cock experimentally, but reservation overtakes him.  “No.  I’m good.”  
   
“I don’t mind.”  
   
“I’m good,” Zach repeats.  
   
“Oh.  Okay.”  
   
Zach was right.  Awkwardness is setting in.  
   
Chris clears his throat.  “One thing, then I gotta crash.  In your story, the guy sucking you couldn’t get enough of…”  He clears his throat again.  “So, uh, is that the sort of thing you like?  You like them begging for it?”  
   
Zach tries really, really hard not to slide a hand back into his PJ bottoms, and fails.  “Of course, sometimes.  Don’t you like that with girls?”  
   
“Yeah.  Yeah, I guess I do sometimes.”  But he sounds dismissive.  “Goodnight, Zach.  Thanks for the bedtime story.  Your narrative technique is improving.”  
   
Zach huffs, insulted and amused at the same time.  “You’re welcome.  See you Monday.”  
   
It’s one a.m.  Zach needs to sleep; he has to be up at five-thirty to make it to the yoga studio and he shouldn’t do it anyway, but he does—he beats one out, fast and mechanical.  He replays his own story, fast-forwarding to the sex the way Chris wanted him to do, so immediately there’s a warm, wet mouth around him.   
   
He knows it’s Chris in the booth, desperate for dick, begging for it.  Chris would be jerking himself while he sucked and he’d make those same noises when he splattered all over the wall,  _ah ah ahhhhing_  around Zach’s cock.  
   
“So that’s what Chris Pine sounds like when he comes,” Zach murmurs into his pillow afterwards.  It doesn’t seem like something one should know about a friend.  
   
But he can’t  _un_ -know it.  
   
   
***  
   
   
Zach, knowing Chris as he does, is expecting some poorly-disguised references to bedtime stories during the next week—most likely in front of other people, because he likes to see if he can make Zach squirm—but there’s nothing.  No euphemistic conversations, no winks or knowing looks, not a mention of it.  And somehow, this week, they never have a second alone.  Zach isn’t sure whether he’s grateful for this or not.  
   
Even at traditional Friday night cast drinks, Chris doesn’t make a peep.  But only a few of them could make it this time, so Zach figures the smaller group might be the reason behind the subdued atmosphere.  After several drinks, though, the night devolves into Simon and John teasing Zach, asking about his love life.  They make outrageous estimates of Zach’s exponentially increased scoring rate now he’s officially out and officially single.  
   
Zach tries to take it in the humor it’s intended but really, it’s too soon.  
   
“Give him a break, guys,” Chris says eventually, and Zach sends him a relieved glance of thanks.  Somehow Chris doesn’t quite catch his eye. His acne has cleared up, but Zach knows it’s because makeup suggested some medicated cream for it. He overheard them gossiping about Chris’s skin the other morning. He hopes Chris doesn’t know they talk about it. It would only fuel his inferiority complex.  
   
“How about you, Pine?” John asks.  “How’s the Captain doing with the lay-deez?”   
   
Chris winces.  “Just fine.  Thanks for asking.”   
   
“Hey, I have to get my vicarious thrills somewhere.”  
   
“Well, thrill in my absence,” Chris says, plastering a grin on his face.  He slaps down a twenty on the table and stands up.  “There’s my contribution for tonight.  I’m out, crew.  Have fun.”  He saunters off, hands in pockets, and gives a wave before disappearing out the door.  He makes a great show of light-heartedness, and Zach wonders if he’s the only one who noticed Chris’s smile didn’t reach his eyes.  
   
“He didn’t even drink his beer,” Zoë notes, sipping her Corona.  She looks at Zach, holding his gaze until he turns away, uncomfortable.  
   
“I’m done too,” he says, throwing in a twenty to match Chris’s.  “The kids will be wondering where I am.”  
   
He smiles away the chorus of boos and tries not to obviously hurry to the exit.  If he’s quick enough—  
   
But he’s not.  He can’t see Chris up or down the street.  He’s not even sure why he wanted to catch up, or what he would have said.  
   
Saturday is gray and cool, and Zach spends most of it sitting around trying to think of something to lift his mood.  The fur-kids are no help, content to spend most of the day napping, as though this Saturday isn’t worth staying awake for.  
   
He goes grocery shopping with Joe, who talks the whole time about a new photography project he’s working on, and stays uninvited for dinner.  Zach doesn’t mind, since Joe also cooks it, and by the time he leaves it’s late enough that Zach feels justified in going to bed.  
   
Once he’s snapped the lights off and settled to wait for sleep, his  _mood_  returns.  He sighs loud enough and resettles often enough to disturb the animals, who move to the living room and leave Zach to his troubles.   
   
Zach checks his phone.  It’s coming up for midnight, but Chris is probably still awake.  Chris is probably still awake and at some club getting hit on by every second girl who walks by.  In fact, Chris probably has his tongue down some girl’s throat at this exact moment.  
   
He types out several texts to Chris and deletes them before sending:  
   
 _let me guess: brunette and stacked?_  
   
 _i’m bored.  entertain me._  
   
 _come for a run tomorrow._  
   
 _thought any more about g-holes?_  
   
No.  Definitely not that last one.  Zach deletes it with great care, lest he should accidentally send it instead.  
   
It’s twelve-oh-three now and Zach is wide awake.  He stares into the dark and thinks about last week.  Last week, right around this time, Chris called him and Zach got to hear him come.  
   
Last week, Zach obliged Chris with a bedtime story because Chris was feeling down.  
   
He texts Chris:  _you owe me._  
   
It seems like forever before there’s a reply, and then it’s a simple:  _?_  
   
 _i caught a case of the grumps from you.  need cheering up._  
   
 _I’m parked outside a local G-hole trying to work up the nerve to go in._  
   
Zach has to read the text several times, coldness radiating through his body to curl his toes and make what’s left of his eyebrows prickle.  He sits up in bed and calls Chris.  “What the fuck, man?”  
   
“Hello to you, too.”  
   
“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?  How did you even  _find_  one?”  
   
“I Googled,” Chris says casually.   
   
“Don’t do this.  Don’t do this, Chris, please.  If anyone ever found out—”  
   
“Zach.  Chill.  It was a  _joke_.  You said you needed cheering up, so I made a dumb joke.  I’m at home, trying to find something to watch on TV.”  Now that Zach is less panicky, he can hear the sound of channels switching: a game show, music videos, something narrated in an English accent.  
   
Zach knows the fury washing over him comes from relief, so he counts to five before saying, “You’re such a shit, Pine.”  
   
“What’s your problem?  You only get sucked off twice at Akbar this evening instead of your usual triple-combo?”  
   
It’s out-of-the-blue vicious, so much that Zach thinks he must have misunderstood the tone.  He shrugs it off and says, “Akbar is so 2009. I spent the evening listening to Joe talk about his new camera lens and trying to get him to stop dropping scraps under the table for Noah.”  
   
“Oh, yeah?”  Chris sounds bored, but the television in the background snaps off.   
   
“I thought you would be out.”  
   
“Well, I’m not.”  
   
“No.”  
   
They sit breathing at each other until Chris says, “What do you want?”  
   
Zach slumps down in the bed, irritated.  “Forget it.  Sorry I called so late.  I’ll see y—”  
   
“You called for a reason.”  
   
“I guess.  Why did you call last Saturday?”  
   
“I asked you first.”  
   
Why  _has_  Zach called?  This is going nowhere, and Chris is in some foul mood.  He’s not playful like he usually is, and Zach resents it, resents the idea that when Chris needs to talk, it’s okay for him to call and demand attention, but it’s not okay for Zach.  He says, “I called for the same reason  _you_  did.  I called because I don’t feel great and I wanted to talk to a friend.”  
   
“You wanted to talk to a…”  Zach has to strain to hear Chris on the other end of the phone.  “I’m sorry,” he says, louder now.  “You’re right.  You did put up with me last weekend—”  
   
“It wasn’t like that.”  
   
“—and now I’m being an asshole.”  
   
“You’re not being an asshole.”  
   
“I’m always being an asshole, Zach.  That’s my thing, right?”  
   
Bewildered, Zach stares into inky black and tries to adjust his vision.  He likes his room as dark as possible, because any little light is prone to wake him.  But right now, the darkness feels oppressive.  He tries to think of something to say, but can’t seem to find words that aren’t defensive or accusatory.   
   
“Zach?  Are you sulking?”  
   
“Fuck you.”  
   
A laugh.  It’s more than Zach has had from him all week.  “Sure?” Chris says.  “Last time didn’t work out so well.”  
   
“Oh, come on,” Zach sighs.  “We’re over that.”  
   
After a long pause, Chris says, “Define ‘over’.”  
   
Fine, if that’s the problem.  “You were drunk.  I was dumb.  We messed up, but I don’t want that to be the defining moment of our relationship.  Especially since we’ll be hitting Cons well into our dotage.  We’re supposed to be Shatner and Nimoy, not Shatner and Takei.”  
   
“I see.”  
   
This is why Zach doesn’t like talking on the phone.  Two syllables from Chris, clipped and unreadable, no back-up body language to read.  
   
“And you’re Takei in this scenario?”  
   
Zach feels his muscles release all over his body in relief.  Chris sounds amused.  “Sure.  I’d rather be Leonard, but in any scenario  _you_  can be the paunchy one.”  
   
“Blasphemer!” Chris gasps, and Zach chuckles.  “Anyway, I guess you’re right.  I do owe you a hot story.”  
   
Zach can’t tell now if he’s kidding or not, but it seems safer to go with humor.  “Eh, don’t worry about it.  I just need to go out and get laid.”  
   
“Oh, yeah?  According to John and Simon—”  
   
Zach makes a noise of protest.  “Don’t  _you_  start, too.”  
   
“When was the last time?”  
   
“When was the last time—Pine, come  _on_.” Zach runs a hand through his hair and ends up clutching at it, a little shot of pain to help him keep hold of reality.   _When was the last time_ you _got laid, nosy?_  is what he should be asking, to keep the back-and-forth going, but he finds he doesn’t want to know.  Not that Chris would give a serious reply.   
   
But he might.  And Zach doesn’t want to know.  Boundaries, he tells himself.  Boundaries.  “Probably sooner than  _you_  did,” he mumbles, because he’s got to say  _something_.  
   
“You know I don’t fuck when I’m working.   _Would_  you like a bedtime story, Zachary?”  
   
Zachary’s cock apparently would.  The evidence tents not just his PJ bottoms, but the quilt as well, like he’s some randy teenager.  It’s not fair, that voice Chris is using.  Definitely not fair.   _Or_  the idea that he’s several months celibate.  Zach finds himself sympathizing heartily with a hundred Hollywood ingénues—although, unlike them, he might not have his hopes dashed.  
   
“Um.”  Not his most eloquent response.  
   
“I’ll make it good,” Chris promises.  “This is a story I’ve been working on for a while now.”  
   
“Lots of character and plot development?”  
   
“I’ll skip right to the action. Start  _in medias res_.”   
   
 _You’ll never win the Pulitzer that way_ , Zach should say.  Or maybe,  _John Grisham must be quaking in his boots_.  But all he says is, “Yeah.  Okay.  Tell me a story.”  Because he wants to hear that voice, talking in that tone, for as long as possible.  
   
   
***  
   
   
The first cock that appeared was stubby and short, poking through the hole almost as soon as the owner stepped into the booth.  But this was not the way it was supposed to happen; Sucker’s Choice tonight, and he was there to suck.  He didn’t move, hoping the protrusion would simply disappear, and after thirty-three excruciating counted-out seconds, it did.   
   
The next guy was more polite.  He stripped off from waist down and, apart from a quick fondle of his balls, kept his hands out of the way so…  
   
   
***  
   
   
“Now here’s where I run into difficulties.”  
   
“You—you do?” Zach chokes.  He’s still getting over the shock of Chris launching into dick descriptions without so much as context-setting.  
   
“Yeah.  Because, see, my protagonist is nameless.  And so’s Cock 2.  And I can’t call him Cock 2, can I?”  
   
“Please don’t.”  
   
“Everything gets mixed up with just male pronouns, so we need at least one name.  What should I call my hero, Zach?”  
   
“Whatever you want.”  That is  _totally_  the right response.  It’s the  _only_  response.   _Christopher Whitelaw Pine_  is definitely, one hundred percent  _not_  the right response, Zach tells Little Zach.  No coups tonight for Little Zach.  
   
“Benedict?” Chris suggests.  
   
“No!  Jeez.”  
   
“Hm.  Karl?”  
   
“He’s  _married_ , Pine.”  
   
“Jonathan?”  
   
Zach catches his breath.  “Chris, that’s—”  
   
“Oh, Chris?  Sure, okay.  Chris it is.  So like I was saying—”  
   
   
***  
   
   
The guy in the other booth stripped off from waist down and, apart from a quick fondle of his balls, kept his hands out of the way so Chris could get a good look at his cock.  Chris started to relax.  This was more like it.  Etiquette was important, especially in situations like these.  
   
This new guy was engorging as Chris stared at him, getting excited just from being looked over, and Chris felt his own dick responding, too.  He’d already got it out of his jeans, hanging loose out of the zipper, the size of a baby elephant’s—  
   
   
***  
   
   
“ _No_.  This is supposed to be hot, not grotesque.”  
   
“Fine.  So it was just hanging loose out of his jeans.”  
   
   
***  
   
   
Chris got down on his knees and moved closer to the hole.  The other guy was Caucasian, dark-haired judging by the hair coated around his balls and ranging down his thighs.  His dick was a nice size and shape; cut, growing even as he stared, and Chris bet it would be gorgeous fully erect. The owner’s fingers were long and artistic, felted with black curls on the knuckles.  His hands and wrists were hairy too, and Chris took a second to be grateful the guy trimmed, because he bet natural bush would be hard going.  
   
Time was ticking by, so Chris ran a fingertip around the rim of the hole, pleased to hear the guy let out a relieved breath before the music in the club downstairs picked up again and drowned out all other sound.  Chris couldn’t help but lick his lips as that swelling dick presented itself through the hole, hard enough to be pointing upwards now and a deep red color at the head.  
   
Chris opened his mouth and—  
   
   
***  
   
   
“Hey!  Condom?”  
   
“Not in  _my_  story.  This is one of those irresponsible porn tales that glosses over the existence of STDs.  It’s my story, and bare cock is hot.”  
   
Zack smiles, petting his own bare cock like he has been for the last five minutes.  “Okay.  Your story, your fictional health at risk.  I’ll stop interrupting.”  
   
“Are you enjoying it so far?”  
   
“Yes.  Keep going.”  
   
“But audience input is valuable, Zachary.  I mean, should there be more description of dripping, viscous precome or, like, do you want me to stick to metaphors about glistening rods?”  
   
Zach groans.  “For fuck’s sake, Pine.”  
   
“Are you touching yourself, Zachary?” Chris asks, somehow singsong and gravelly at the same time.  
   
Zach starts wondering if maybe Chris has had a few.  “No.”  
   
“Quinto, you’re a terrible liar.”  
   
“Okay, I am, but I didn’t want to freak you out.”  
   
“I’d be more freaked out if you  _weren’t_  getting off to this.  That’s the whole point.”  
   
“Oh, okay,” Zach says, a little breathless.  He should probably think about this for a second, because he has a sense there might be  _consequences_ , but damn it, Little Zach has staged a glorious comeback, and he’s not a rebel to be trifled with.  
   
“So where was I?” Chris purrs.  
   
“‘Chris opened his mouth.’”  
   
   
***  
   
   
Chris opened his mouth and tried to resist the urge to cram as much dick as he could into it.  It was tempting, though—he was desperate to taste that heavy cock, to feel it weighing down his tongue, to guzzle everything the guy could shoot out and come back for more.   
   
He settled, for now, for sucking on the generously proportioned head.  With his tongue, he probed at the slit like he was sucking the meat out of a crab leg, and was rewarded with a generous spill of precome. This guy was going to unload like a fire hose when he came.  
   
Chris began swallowing down on the thick meat, his own drool slicking the way as it worked down his throat.  It was tough work.  The guy was huge, his cock hot and pulsing as Chris worked his face further down.  But this was the way Chris liked it, hard and dirty, like his whole purpose in life was to suck dick.  It felt like he was stretching beyond his body’s limit, like he was being impaled face-first on—  
   
   
***  
   
   
“—are you okay?”  
   
“Yeahyeahyeah, I’m good, I’m good.  But Jesus Christ, Chris.  Give me—wait a second, okay?  Wait or I’m gonna—”  
   
“You like the idea of me impaling my face on your fat cock?”  
   
Zach gasps out something.  It might be Chris’s name.  It might be an attempt to shut it up, that oddly innocent but sultry voice worming its way through the ether and into his ear.  
   
It doesn’t really matter, because Zach is shooting, messing up the underside of the quilt his mom made specially for his thirtieth birthday, which he’s always been careful to keep pure and untarnished.   
   
Before he’s recovered, he can hear Chris and his  _ah ah ahhhhhs_  again, which is unexpected.  Zach had no idea Chris was getting off on this too.  
   
He smiles, dopey, into the black.  It seems a little less dark now.  
   
“You liked?” Chris asks, once he’s caught his breath.  
   
“Hell, yeah.  I mean, it was kind of obscene, dude.  But hot.  Very convincing  _gay_ -hot, even.  Bravura performance.”  
   
Chris says nothing.  
   
“Are you—” Zach starts, and Chris speaks over the top of him.  
   
“So we’re even.  I’ll see you Monday.”  
   
The silence after Chris hangs up cuts right through Zach’s post-orgasmic bliss, and the dark crashes down again, stifling and unpleasant.  
   
   
***  
   
   
Monday is not much fun.  JJ is under-caffeinated or something, and Zach has to put on the harness to shoot a falling scene.  The harness squeezes his junk and makes him pissy, so much so that even Zoë tells him to stop being a bitch.  
   
“Not  _me_  being—” he begins, but the frosty, furious, Zoë-glare shuts him up before he says something he regrets.  
   
Chris avoids him all morning.  They don’t have any scenes one-on-one, so it’s simple enough.  And for some reason, Chris is extra-flirty today.  He’s always drawn people to him, especially women, but Zach could swear he’s using that come-hither look on the  _guys_  today, as well.  
   
He wants to grab Chris and shake him until his teeth rattle, tell him, “You’re straight, shithead,  _deal_  with it.”  
   
Because no matter what crude, filthy tales Christopher Whitelaw Pine might spin about impaling his face on Zach’s fat cock…  
   
Zach’s thought processes peter out.   
   
Point is, he silently tells his chicken salad at lunchtime, Chris is straight, no matter what his fantasies might be.  He might claim to be bisexual, but Zach doubts he is.  First off, being bi is just the fashionable thing these days.  And second,  _actual_  bi-guys are just gays with a foot in the closet.  Zach should know; he used the bi excuse himself when he was younger.  
   
And Chris is  _definitely_  not gay.  
   
Because it’s not fantasies that count, it’s what people  _do_  that counts.  Zach knows this because, when he was a teenager, he had a few daydreams about what lay between female thighs. And okay, he even occasionally thinks about it  _now_ , when he’s in a particular  _mood_.  But that doesn’t make him straight, for Christ’s sake; nor does it make him bi.  It makes him a guy.  Any port in a storm, and all that.   
   
That’s all it is for Chris.  Zach is sure of it, and his righteous certainty makes him sullen and snappy for the whole afternoon.  
   
In the early evening, when everyone is tired of filming and tired of Zach and looking forward to the end of the day, Chris is the only one still suggesting new ideas to JJ for the takes.  His enthusiasm is as perky and overwhelming as a puppy’s.  
   
“If he doesn’t shut up,” Zach says to Karl privately, “I’m going to skin him alive, dress up Zac Efron in a Chris Pine suit, and let The Zef be Captain Kirk from now on.”  
   
“Oh, indulge him,” Karl says.  “He’s had a rough time lately, he told me his ego’s taken some bruising.  Besides, you can’t replace him with some teen heart-throb.  He’s unique, is our Captain.”  
   
Zach’s voice rings out across the set during a sudden hush, loud enough to make everyone—from Karl to JJ to the PA standing in the corner to Chris himself—stop and stare.   
   
“Oh, sure. He’s a fucking snowflake.”  
   
For a second, Zach thinks he can play it off, but the anger in Chris’s face shows that he knows Zach was talking about him.  Karl scoots away from Zach like he doesn’t want to catch the nuclear fallout.  Chris’s mood shift, from eager enjoyment to stiff silence, seeps into the atmosphere on set, and JJ sends them all home soon afterwards.  Zach tries to sneak by unnoticed, but JJ pulls him aside.  
   
“You might want to bring some of your usual professionalism with you tomorrow, Zach,” is all he says, but it’s enough to skyrocket Zach’s guilty feelings.  
   
So Zach feels like shit, but he silently stands by his opinion.  Chris Pine is not some unique snowflake who is just  _discovering_  his “bisexuality” now Zach is feeling—whatever Zach is feeling.  
   
Zach wants to text Chris that night when he can’t sleep, but he knows whatever he says will have to start with an apology.   
   
It’s impossible to apologize for something when Zach knows he’s  _right_.  
   
   
***  
   
   
Zach settles for catching Chris outside makeup the next morning and giving a general apology for being a jerk.  Chris nods, and even initiates a Spork handshake by way of acceptance, but he’s still quiet all day;  _introspective_ , Ben calls him over lunch.  
   
“Just tired,” Chris says with upturned lips and a shrug, but his face is pensive again when attention passes on from him. It doesn’t escape Zach, who feels responsible for the change. Zoë is the only other one who seems to notice. Sitting next to Chris at the table, she links her arm through his and leans her head on his shoulder as though projecting  _feel-better_  vibes through physical contact.  
   
An hour before they’re due to wrap for the day, Zach notices the two of them having a quiet conversation. It’s definitely not about work; the body language is all wrong. It’s something personal and important. Zoë’s eyes are limpid and sympathetic, and she takes Chris’s hand as she makes a point.  
   
Zach feels a frisson run through him, and twitches. Zoë sees him watching and repositions so Zach can’t see her face, can’t see what she might be saying. She’s blocked by the back of Chris’s head.  
   
Zach doesn’t know whether he’s more miffed by the exclusion or by the fact he cares about what they’re saying.  
   
They run over time, and it’s deep in the evening by the time they wrap.  Zach heads back to his trailer, planning to wind down before heading back to makeup to have his ears removed. He’s barely made it through the door before Chris is barreling in behind him, silent but determined, still in his Starfleet uniform. He sits on the sofa, lowering himself with straight-backed precision and placing his hands on his knees.  
   
Without asking, Zach pulls out two bottles of water from the fridge and hands one to Chris.  “What’s going on with you?”  They open their bottles in unison, which makes Zach smile.  
   
But Chris fiddles with his water bottle, not speaking, until Zach sits next to him on the sofa, and puts an arm around his shoulder.  
   
“Hey.  Hey, what’s up?  You’re upset about something.”  
   
Chris turns his head slowly, looking straight into his eyes.  “For a smart guy, Zach…”  
   
He launches himself at Zach, water bottles forgotten.  Startled, Zach pushes him back with a firm hand on his chest, and they both end up drenched with frigid water.  
   
“Fuck.  Fuck fuck fuckity  _fuck_ ,” Chris gasps, dancing around the trailer and flailing his hands.  “My  _balls_.  Fuck.”  
   
“What in the hell was  _that_ , Pine?”  Zach hauls off his soaked Spock-top and manages to rip off a Vulcan ear in the process.  “Oh, fantastic.  Fucking _great_.”  
   
“ _Ugh_.”  Chris starts pulling off his pants, and under any other circumstances, Zach would be cackling at his lapful of icy water—probably trying to grab a video on his iPhone—but not under  _these_  circumstances.  
   
Chris has clasped his hands between his legs and is rubbing briskly.  
   
“Jesus  _Christ_ —” Zach splutters, but Chris fixes him with a baleful look.  
   
“Don’t say a goddamn thing.  Just get me some dry underwear and a pair of those ugly-ass track pants you wear.”  
   
Zach figures it’s not the time to correct him about the yoga pants, and moves past to his dressing area.  Thank God he has an unopened pack of Calvin Kleins, although his yoga pants have splash-evidence of his last Lamill visit on one thigh.  Chris grabs the clothes without a word of thanks and waves an angry hand to indicate Zach should turn around while he changes.  Zach does, fidgeting with his torn-off ear until he judges he can safely turn back.  
   
Chris has wrapped his arms around himself and as Zach opens his mouth, takes a step towards the door.  
   
“Whoa, wait up,” Zach says.  “You tried to  _kiss_  me.”  
   
“Yeah.  And  _you_  bulldozed  _me_  halfway across your trailer before literally dumping cold water on me.  I got the message.”  He doesn’t move, though, and Zach realizes uncomfortably that Chris is struggling to control his emotions.  
   
“Sit down.  Please.”  
   
Chris makes his way back to the sofa and sits on a non-wet portion, still hugging himself and shivering now as though he’s freezing.  Zach turns the heat up.  When that doesn’t work, he crouches down in front of Chris and looks up into his face.  “Hey, seriously.  Are you okay?”  He begins rubbing his arms up and down, until Chris pulls away.  
   
“Don’t,” he chokes out, and Zach backs off, sits in the chair opposite.  They sit like that until Chris flops back, and says, “Fuck, man.  I’m sorry.”  
   
“I didn’t mean to shove you like that.”  
   
“I didn’t mean to jump you like that.  My bad.”  Chris scrunches a handful of the yoga pants along his thigh and stares at his knees.  “Just that lately, I’ve been thinking.  I’ve been having…thoughts.”  
   
Zach tries to cover his snort with a cough, but Chris glares at him.  “Sorry.  What kind of thoughts?”  
   
“You know what kind.”  Chris gives him a  _look_ , like Zach is psychic or something and should be able to understand just via his eloquent eyebrow movements.  
   
But Zach gets it, or thinks he does.  “Chris?  Don’t even worry about it.  Glory hole fantasies notwithstanding, you’re straight.”  He gives a comforting smile.  
   
The smile sets Chris off again, and he’s shouting, really shouting this time, so that there’s an alarmed knock on the trailer and a production assistant looks in to see if there’s anything wrong.  
   
As though the force of his emotion has driven him out of his seat, Chris is standing, panting, his face red and his fists screwed up.   
   
“We’re fine,” Zach assures the assistant, and stands himself.  “Just going over some lines, this scene where we’re arguing. Pretty convincing, huh?”  
   
The assistant looks supremely unconvinced, but leaves them alone.  
   
“Will you  _stop_  telling me what I am?” Chris says, his voice harsh but low.  “Stop telling me  _who_  I am.”  
   
“I’m not!” Zach tells him.  “How could I?  I don’t even  _know_  who you are anymore.  I don’t know what this is supposed to be.”  He gestures between them, and Chris stares at his flapping hand.  “I thought we were  _friends_.  Friends don’t argue like this.  Friends don’t try to kiss each other.  Friends don’t have  _phone sex_ , for Christ’s sake.  Friends don’t try and spectacularly  _fail_  to blow—”  
   
“I  _knew_  it.  I  _knew_  you were still holding on to that.  ‘Over it’, my ass.”  
   
They’re getting louder again.  
   
“What do you  _want_ , Chris?  What do you want from me?”  
   
“I want  _you_ , you freaking dipshit.   _You_.”  The flush of anger has faded from Chris’s face now, leaving only his cheekbones burning and making his blue eyes stand out all the more.  
   
Zach doesn’t want to say anything to upset Chris more, but surely Chris must realize this isn’t how things are supposed to work.  “Look, if you want to fuck…I mean, I guess if you  _really_  want to know what it’s like, we could maybe…”   
   
Chris looks like Zach has thrust a rapier into his gut and  _twisted_.  
   
“I’m in love with you,” Chris says.  “I’ve been in love with you for years.”  
   
“But that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”  Zach gives an effete, confused laugh.  
   
He expects more shouting, but Chris quietly leaves the trailer.  
   
   
***  
   
   
There is a  _remote_  possibility, Zach realizes during yet another restless night, that he might be…  
   
Wrong.   
   
About some things.  About Chris.  
   
And admittedly, Chris had a point about Zach dictating to him what Chris must be feeling and what his orientation must be.  Zach knows from experience how frustrating and offensive it can be to have someone saying  _are you sure, but how can you be certain, it’s just a phase, you’re just confused_.  
   
“But he totally  _puked_ ,” he tells Noah, who  _humphs_  back at him, and goes to sleep in the lounge again.  Zach feels utterly rejected.  
   
 _You feel rejected?  How do you think Chris feels?_ his brain asks.   
   
“Shit,” he says into the darkness.  
   
 _Maybe,_ his brain continues, _this thing is not All About You. Maybe this thing is about Chris, but you made it about Zach and Zach’s issues._  
   
Zach sits up and fumbles for his phone.  
   
 _i’m sorry_ , he texts.  
   
Chris is probably asleep.  It’s coming up on one a.m. and they have, as always, an early call tomorrow.  But just in case Chris is not asleep, just in case he’s staring at his cell and deciding what to text back, Zach texts again.  
   
 _i’m sorry i was an asshole today._  
   
And then,  
   
 _i’m sorry i acted like that and i’m sorry i keep telling you who you are and i’m sorry i made this about ME when it’s about YOU and i’m sorry for everything generally._  
   
And finally,  
   
 _please forgive me._  
   
Twenty minutes later Zach is mentally down to sixteen bottles of beer on the wall, trying to bore himself to sleep. The entire room seems to light up behind his closed eyelids.  He opens his eyes.  Just his phone, coming to life with a new text.   
   
 _You laughed at me._  
   
 _i’m a total shit.  i’m sorry.  i’ll apologize for the rest of forever and you can send that video of me to perez._  
   
 _The video of you getting your eyebrows waxed and crying like a little bitch?_  
   
 _yeah_  
   
 _You MUST be sorry._  
   
 _yeah_  
   
This time when the phone lights up, it’s an incoming call from Chris.  Zach cringes, but sacks up enough to answer it.  “Hey.  I really am sorry.”  
   
“It’s cool.”  
   
“No, but I am.”  
   
“Yeah.  I know, Zach.”  
   
Neither of them speak until Zach can’t bear the silence any longer.  “What I’m about to say might sound totally douche-worthy, but I don’t mean it that way.”  
   
“Go for it.  I’ve said enough stupid shit to you over the years.”  
   
“What you said, after the yelling, and before I laughed…”  
   
“That I’m in love with you?”  
   
“Yeah.  That.  What exactly did you mean?”  
   
Chris sighs.  “I meant that if I were back in junior high, I would doodle your initials in a heart on the back page of my math textbook.  I meant that when I watch stupid romantic comedies I recast them in my head with us in the lead roles.  I meant that I think about you when I go to sleep and when I wake up and all the times in between.  I meant that I am  _smitten_ by you, Zach.  What else would I mean?”  
   
Zach thinks it over, wondering at the way his insides warm at Chris’s words.  “I’ve been kind of working under the assumption that you’re straight,” he says.  
   
“That’s one way of putting it,” Chris mutters.  “Come on, Zach, you  _want_  me to be straight.  Like anything other couldn’t exist in your fucking world view.”  
   
There’s nothing Zach can say to that, because it’s pretty much true.  He likes to have his relationships arranged in neat, orderly fashion.  He likes to know where he stands at all times. He hates to think there might be something he can’t fully wrap his brain around.  Straights? He gets them.  Bisexuality, though—that’s way outside his experience of desire.  
   
“Okay. Let’s meet.”  When Chris hesitates, Zach adds, “This is too important for the phone. I can’t fucking see you, your expression. And I’m gonna say stupid things and you’re gonna get mad and shitty and at least if we’re face to face—Please. I need to see you. I’ll come over.”  
   
“No. I’ll come to you. Just this one last time, okay? I’ll come to you, Zach.”  
   
And with that, Chris hangs up.  Goddamn Christopher Pine and his melodramatic, turgid, dripping-with-meaning exit lines.  
   
   
***  
   
   
Chris arrives so fast that Zach has only just poured his first cup of coffee from the machine.  He offers Chris one, and they drink it sitting opposite each other at the counter, bashful with each other again.  
   
“Dude, let’s do this,” Zach says eventually. “I can’t deal with silence.”  
   
“Look, you made it clear you don’t feel the same way,” Chris tells him. He raises his coffee cup to his mouth and puts it back down. Only then does Zach notice that it’s already empty. “And it’s okay.  I won’t bring it up again.  We’re friends, and that’s important to me, as important as anything else.”  
   
“Just wait a minute,” Zach says desperately.  “Just wait.  You can’t drop this whole  _thing_  on me and get me thinking about options I never even realized were available and then say they’re  _not_  available anymore before I’ve even had a chance to—” He runs out of breath.  
   
Chris gives a laugh that ends in a sigh.  “Man, you are so fucking oblivious.  Didn’t you ever stop to wonder  _why_  I had a room that night at Chateau Marmont?  Why I drank so much?”  
   
No.  No, Zach had not stopped to wonder about it, and now he feels stupid.  “I just figured you felt like a big night.”  
   
“I was nervous.  I wanted to tell you how I felt that night, but every time I opened my mouth to say something I took a drink instead and then, well,” Chris’s voice drops, “then everything went to shit.”  
   
“Let me get this straight, so to speak.  You were trying to  _seduce_  me?”  
   
“Crudely.  But yes.” Chris pretend-sips from his mug again.  
   
“And the glory hole stuff?  What was that about?”  
   
“You’ll laugh at me again.”  
   
“I can absolutely promise you I won’t.”   
   
“It was a stupid attempt at conditioning you.  You were so  _hung up_  on that one night—” Chris pauses, expecting Zach to break in and deny it, but Zach keeps his mouth shut.  Some of Chris’s anger has drained away from his face when he continues.  “I thought if I could make you forget about it, if I could make you think about how hot it would be, make you picture me  _begging_  for it and  _loving_  it, then maybe…”  
   
Zach is impressed.  This is the sort of Machiavellian forethought he might be inclined to use himself, and the idea of Chris thinking it through, setting it up to target Zach’s sensibilities, having a whole psychological plan worked out—well, it’s flattering.   
   
It’s also kinda hot, especially hearing Chris talk about begging for it.  
   
 _Focus, Zachary_ , he tells himself sternly.  
   
He says, “It’s just…”  
   
Chris frowns.  “I  _know_  what it is, Zach. You can’t conceive of anything outside your own goddamn experience.”  
   
“Hey, now,” Zach protests.  “That’s not fair.”  When Chris says nothing, and makes another fake coffee-sip, he admits, “It’s true, but it’s not fair. I’m trying to understand.  I’m trying to be a better person, maybe make some changes—just like what you said you were trying to do, way back when this whole mess got started.”  
   
“Mess?” The word is brittle; glass blown too thin and in danger of cracking.  
   
“It  _is_  a mess, Chris. You know what I’m talking about. Come on, meet me halfway.”  
   
Chris pushes his empty mug away, and scratches at the countertop. “Okay.  When did you know you were gay?”  
   
“Young. Like, nine.”  
   
“And how old were you when you first fucked a guy?”  
   
Zach, oddly shocked, says, “These are very intimate questions, Pine.”  
   
The look Chris gives him is even more intimate, entreating and fragile at the same time. “My point is, according to your rules, before you actually fucked a guy you were not-gay. Not-sexual. Right?”  
   
“Of course not. I knew what I was.”  
   
“So in fact you  _knew_  what you were, even though you’d never fooled around with dick. You had a preference before you acted on it—you just weren’t sexually active about it yet.”  
   
The logic of it trickles through Zach’s brain. He stands open-mouthed, staring past Chris’s shoulder as things start to make sense. Goddamn.  
   
What an asshole he’s been.  
   
He focuses on Chris’s face, who is staring hopefully back. “Pine,” he says.  
   
“Yes?”  
   
“Let’s go to bed.”  
   
For a terrifying moment, he thinks Chris will turn him down, but he stands, takes Zach’s hand, and lets Zach lead him to the bedroom.  
   
   
***  
   
   
Chris’s body is a whole fucking saga unto itself, and Zach wants to read it forever.  The scent of him, the hollow of his throat, the hollow of his back: they pull sonnets from the depths of Zach’s unconsciousness, long forgotten couplets and sibilant phrases he hasn’t thought about for years.  
   
“Hey, I’m barely done with the prologue,” he mutters, when Chris tugs his hands away.  
   
“The fuck are you talking about?  Take your clothes off.”  
   
“God.  You’re so romantic.”  
   
“Wrong genre.  This is erotica.  Quickly heading to porn.”  
   
“What’s the difference?”  Zach strips off his shirt and dives back towards him, but Chris holds him back, contemplating his torso with a gratifying admiration.  
   
“Since you ask,” Chris starts, but Zach lunges to suck on his tongue before any more words can spill out of him.  
   
Things move along rapidly; all clothes are shed; Zach finally gets a proper look at Chris’s cock. It’s thick and pink and he has a large, luscious, fuzzy ballsack that makes Zach want to rub his nose into it. But before he can make a move, Chris pushes him back on the bed and starts sliding down Zach’s body. His intention is obvious.  
   
“Careful,” Zach can’t stop himself from saying, but he thinks it’s fair.   
   
Chris scowls at him, but Zach is thankful to see he’s taking his time.  No diving right in like the last disastrous time. Zach’s brain unhelpfully forms a narrative.   _Chris kept his eyes fixed on Zach’s as he lowered his head and pressed his plump, pink lips against Zach’s impressively large cock.  Slowly, Chris licked a hot stripe—_  
   
Zach would like to say he hears poetry when Chris finally starts to suck, but his mind is completely subordinate to Little Zach at this point.  Chris is tentative this time, until he finds his rhythm.  Zach watches him not just to make sure nothing  _bad_  happens this time, but also because Chris is hotter than any story he’s spun.  
   
Chris’s mouth is getting wet, spit-slick and shiny just like Zach’s cock, and the pink of his lips is getting deeper.  He’s working a fist around the base as well, in a twist-grip-slide motion Zach realizes must be the same one Chris uses on himself when he’s beating off. The thought makes him buck up on the bed, and Chris manfully swallows him down without choking.  His eyes are squeezed shut; his lips get paler as they stretch wider and Zach remembers that one phrase— _impaling my face on your fat cock_ —  
   
He shoots; it’s half-painful.  Too quick.  
   
Zach raises himself up weakly on his elbows.  He watches Chris frantically jacking his own dick until he realizes what’s about to happen.  “No, wait, don’t— _wait_ , you fucker, I wanna—”  
   
Too late. Chris makes the  _ah ah ahhhh_ noise, but it’s so much better this time because Zach gets to see his face, the way Chris looks surprised at the pleasure coursing through him—out of him—spurting on Zach’s thigh and catching in his bush like beads of water.  
   
“You—” Zach’s throat sticks, his tongue spasms. He grabs Chris and drags him up, sucks on his mouth in a sloppy attempt at a kiss. “You dummy. Now it’s over and we never get another shot at the first time.”  
   
“Hey, you weren’t complaining a minute ago,” Chris pants. He collapses on his back, his sweat reflecting in the dim yellow light from the hallway, giving him a golden sheen. “So, I didn’t puke.”  
   
“That’s a low bar to set for yourself.”  
   
“Enh.” Chris flaps a hand in the air, then lets it fall.  
   
Zach recognizes the post-coital glow that inevitably leads to sleeping.  “If you wrote a story that reached a climax that fast, they’d tell you to stretch it out more.”  
   
Chris opens his eyes, looks at Zach, and frowns. “Did you seriously just insult my stamina?”  
   
“Maybe.”  
   
“Impertinent douchenozzle.”  They grin at each other, and Chris says, “Honestly, man, I was worried something might go wrong, so…”  
   
“So you rushed it when you realized it was going well. And that’s fine, I understand. But—” Zach rolls on top of him, relishing the way Chris’s pupils bloom. “—get comfy. Let me tell you a story. ’Cause our guys at the glory hole, our intrepid heroes—you know we can’t leave them hanging there in a public bathroom, forever doomed to separation by a graffitied partition with a hole in it.”  
   
“It wasn’t a bathroom. It was a bookstore.”  
   
“The setting is hardly the important thing.”  
   
“Actually—”  
   
“Everyone’s a critic. Just shut up and listen, Pine.”  
   
Chris docilely links his hands behind his head, under the pillow.  
   
“So one night Zach politely turns down the beej, and asks his guy to come home with him instead.  He finds out his name is Chris, and he’s hotter than the sun even when he’s not on his knees sucking cock. Zach gets him back to his house and takes him to bed. And there’s no wall between them now, nothing separating them.”  
   
“What do they do?” Chris’s eyes are on him now, curious. They’re so goddamn blue.  
   
“I’m about to tell you what they do. Have some patience.”  
   
“Is Zach maybe a bit toppy, like, holding his guy down or something?”  
   
This is the sort of prompt Zach doesn’t mind at all.  He reaches under the pillow to grip Chris’s wrists, hold him down. “Yeah,” he says, leaning in to breathe the word into Chris’s ear. “Yeah, I think Zach’s maybe a bit toppy. So then he tells Chris he’s going to get him hard, see what his cock feels like when it’s nice and thick, since he hasn’t had a chance before now.”  
   
Chris grunts. It takes less time than Zach would have anticipated before Chris is heavy again in his hand, panting underneath him and spreading his legs in an unmistakable invitation. Zach runs his fingers over Chris’s balls, appreciating their weight in his palm.  
   
“And he tells Chris, ‘Next time you suck me, I’ll fuck that mouth like it really deserves.’”  
   
Chris makes a gurgling noise.  
   
It’s perfect feedback, so Zach keeps going. He discovers Chris responds best to phrases that objectify, even insult him, which is  _so_  fine with Zach because no one in their right mind would turn down the chance to watch Chris Pine babbling and pleading and wriggling around just because he’s being called an  _indefatigable cocksucker_  and a  _concupiscent little slut_.  
   
It might actually be the thesaurus Zach’s unloading in his ear more than the name-calling, but whatever. Zach has plenty of time to find out about  _that_.  
   
Chris opens his mouth even wider, gasping  _ah, ah, ah_ —it won’t take much to coax the final  _ahhhhh_ out of him now, so Zach leaves his cock alone. He lays a fingertip on Chris’s pucker instead, and it feels like it’s burning up. Chris stares into his eyes like he can see the whole goddamn universe in them.  
   
“Wha’z Zach do next?” It’s the first time Chris has been able to slur out a sentence for a while, and his voice is cracked and raspy. Zach raises his hand and spits on his fingers, making sure Chris sees him do it. He replaces his finger back on that tight little hole, slicks it with spit, but keeps his gaze on Chris. Their eyes are burning into each other. Chris gives a groan that sounds like he’s breaking apart from the inside out.  
   
“Plays with his asshole for a while.” Said asshole clenches against Zach’s fingertip, and Chris’s panting becomes harsher. “You like that, don’t you?”  
   
Chris makes a sound supposed to represent a  _Yes_.  Zach is surprised at the lack of resistance as his finger is swallowed up. Chris is hot inside, and Zach can feel a pulse beating rapidly. And it just goes to show, Zach thinks, that the way to Chris Pine’s heart truly is through his butthole.  
   
“Stroke yourself,” he says, and Chris’s hand shoots to his cock. Zach leans down and speaks softly in to Chris’s ear. “And Zach tells him, ‘No more glory holes for you. You’re mine now. So whenever you want to suck my dick, all you have to do is get down on your knees and open your talented mouth.’”  
   
Chris arcs up, his cock pointed at Zach, and the familiar  _ah ah ahhhhh_ sounds from his open mouth. He coats Zach with spurt after spurt until his body gives out and he collapses back, chuckling.  
   
“Now that’s what I call a dramatic climax,” Chris says. He surprises Zach then, slithering off the bed and kneeling on the floor. He opens his mouth.  
   
It’s hot.  
   
Zach scoots to sit on the edge of the bed.  
   
 _Chris_  is hot, panting and grinding his face down in Zach’s lap. He seems to have fully embodied Story Chris now, because he can swallow down Zach’s whole cock, right to the base, and moan around it with no sign of discomfort. Or gagging, even when Zach spills down his throat, clutching at the back of Chris’s head and twisting fingers in his hair.  
   
They clamber haphazardly back on to the bed and lie entangled in each other. Zach can’t quit touching him, not now that he has permission. Chris eventually grabs Zach’s hand to get him to stop, and plays with his fingers. Little Zach makes a valiant stir when Chris starts to suck on one of them, but hell, Zach isn’t eighteen anymore. The uprising subsides. “Yeah. I was wrong,” Zach says. “About you. Sorry.”  
   
Chris starts to laugh. “Christ, man. If that session was your idea of an apology, please be wrong more often.”  
   
Zach makes an  _mmmmmmm_  noise, and twists so he can lick the sweat off Chris’s collarbone. There are a few jizz-splashes as well, drying. He wonders whether Chris will let him record the sound he makes when he comes. He could make it his ring tone. Scandalize everyone.  
   
“What specifically were you wrong about?” Chris asks. He threads his fingers through Zach’s hair.  
   
“You know.”  
   
“Oh, I know. I just want to hear you spell it out, word by word.”  
   
“You’re a shit, Pine. But okay: I was wrong about you. About your bisexuality, and about bisexuality in general. I was wrong and you were right. Happy?” He noses into Chris’s neck, breathing him in. “ _I’m_  happy. Never been happier to have been so wrong.”  
   
Chris says, “That’s great, and you  _were_  wrong about it, but it’s not the only thing you got wrong.”  
   
Zach props himself up on an elbow. Chris looks wrecked, and Zach is sure he does too. It’s too near dawn to bother going back to sleep now, and makeup are going to have spend extra time covering up the signs of exhaustion, Zach bets. Exhaustion and sex. “What  _else_  was I wrong about?”  
   
“Storytelling. It can definitely be taught.” There’s a wicked spark in Chris’s tired eyes. “You, for example, have improved out of sight since jellyfish were sucking you off.” Zach’s outrage segues into a play fight, until Chris is pinned beneath him, flushed and breathless and joyful.  They disengage, unwind and lie facing each other. Chris murmurs, after a time of contented silence, “Your narrative skills are without equal.”  
   
Zach kisses him for that, slow and gentle. Not like any kiss they’ve had so far. It works. It works well.  
   
“So my porn met your criterion for a successful story?” he asks afterwards.  
   
“Oh, yes,” Chris says. He takes Zach’s hand, and presses it to his lips. “Something has  _definitely_  changed inside the character.”


End file.
